Locust Abortion Technician cover

Locust Abortion Technician

Released

The Butthole Surfers’ third album is split nearly 50-50 between goofy tape/noise experiments (“Kuntz,” “Weber,” “Hay”) and surprisingly heavy rock songs (“Sweat Loaf,” built on the riff from Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf,” the imitation thrash metal of “The O-Men,” and most amazingly, “Human Cannonball,” a cranked-up arena anthem with clearly audible — if still nonsensical — vocals and a massive, pounding beat). Two versions of the hellish stoner blues “Graveyard” bracket the album, and it ends with the nightmarish “22 Going On 23,” a psychedelic sludge jam introduced by a tape of a woman revealing herself (falsely) to a call-in radio show as the victim of sexual abuse.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Illusions cover

Illusions

Arthur Blythe
Live 1977-1979 cover

Live 1977-1979

Teenage Jesus & the Jerks
The Peach Orchard cover

The Peach Orchard

In Order to Survive, William Parker
Conversations cover

Conversations

Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio, Archie Shepp
Sama Layuca cover

Sama Layuca

McCoy Tyner
Live at the East cover

Live at the East

Pharoah Sanders
Monster cover

Monster

Steppenwolf